


Smoker's Cough

by Aria_i_Adagio



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25121470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aria_i_Adagio/pseuds/Aria_i_Adagio
Summary: A couple short interludes between Asra and an apprentice recovering herself.
Relationships: Apprentice/Asra (The Arcana)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

She's smoking.

He definitely hadn't taught her that.

But when he gets back from a quick trip out to the forest to take Muri a few things and collect some herbs, she's sitting out back of the shop, sprawled in a chair and puffing away at her old pipe. Where did she get the tobacco?

Faust raises her head from where she's curled on the stones warmed by the afternoon sun, and gives him the snake version of a shrug. After all, how was she supposed to stop her.

Asra had hoped that habit was one that would stay forgotten. He never liked the way it roughened her voice and made her cough when she was stressed and had too many pipes in one day. How had she lit it? Small flames, a burning candle, no longer frightened her, but he hadn’t seen her light one of her own accord yet.

"Hey." He sat down on the ground beside her chair. She turned her head and smiled at him. One hand drifted over the armrest and touched his shoulder, and he reached back up touching his fingers to hers.

A little pause and a little wrinkle between her eyebrows as she composed a sentence in her head, matching vocabulary with grammar. Her speech was coming back quickly now, but she mixed words from her native language with the grammar of the trade language and vice versa. It frustrated her terribly. And it didn't help that Asra had never learned more than a few funny proverbs and idioms in the language she grew up speaking. That seemed to be the clearest to her. Another regret to add to his list.

Occasionally she used a phrase or two that she could only have picked up from Ilya, and Asra's heart broke a little more.

"Find it? What for you were looking?" Her intonation and accent were the same as they'd ever been once she got the rest together, her mouth and tongue remembering how to move more easily than her mind could sort out the rest of it. She takes another draw of the pipe, and Asra sighs. 

"Most of it. It's still early for elderberry."

She nods in agreement. "Need the syrup. Stocked. By winter."

That was something else that had come back easily. She knew her trade, and she knew her shop. Knew which tinctures needed to be started and when. Which herbs went together and which needed to stay apart. Which plants in the remnants of her garden needed to stay and which were weeds to be tossed into the compost heap. Knew what the inventory should be and had started taking it on the same schedule as before and making lists of what was missing - even shoving lists into his hands before she spoke more than a few words to him at a time.

"They'll be ripe soon enough."

"I can go? To gather?"

Asra smiled and squeezed her hand. He hoped that she could. He had wanted to take her today, but she woke in a grumpy, maudlin mood, and it had seemed better to leave her with Faust as a watchful guardian. Muriel always confused her, with all the extra layers of remembering and forgetting that cloaked him and clouded her own mind. But she was well enough to stay on her own for an afternoon. That was good for her too.

And apparently she had been well enough to go to the tobacconist in the market for her second favorite vice. He supposed that was some kind of positive sign. She'd gotten comfortable buying bread from Selasi, and the sympathetic baker watched out for her in the market. He also quietly passed around the story that Asra made up to explain how she was alive. No, she hadn't died. Hadn't even been sick. She'd left town to meet him in Zadith, but the ship she was on wrecked, and she must have gotten hit pretty hard in the head, and Asra hadn't known she survived the wreck, but some kind person found a bit of identification on her and saw her back to Vesuvia. It was just a coincidence that she reappeared right around that last masquerade and the death of the count. It was only a rumor that several people had seen plague doctors at the shop the day she left. Just a rumor. A mistake.

A terrible mistake.

"Does she know about Julian?" Selasi asked him once, hesitantly because doubtlessly, that would be a sore spot for Asra.

It was, but not entirely in the way that Selasi thought. 

"I don't think she remembers him."

Asra wasn't sure that was entirely true. He found her crying once, curled up in bed and holding one of Ilya's shirts that had been left behind, and no matter what he did, he couldn't console her that night. At least, not enough to stop her tears. She finally fell asleep while he held her, and he took the shirt from her hands. He thought about getting rid of it. But it still smelled like Ilya, and he found that he didn't really want to let it go. He hung it up instead, well hidden in the back of the closet. 

The spell hadn’t - he reassured himself when he got back into bed - been the silent, horrible trance she’d fallen into when she’d found a stash of her old letters and journals. The time even Artemis had given up on her finding her way out alone, and he had gone back to the books he thought he had sworn off. Found a way to blot those letters and what they contained from her memory. Paper over whatever painful piece of her past she had discovered. He hated himself as he did it. There just wasn't another way.

When she came back around, he was sobbing and her arms around him - her hands rubbing his shoulders, her voice humming softly in his ear - only made it worse.  _ Why do you trust me? After all that I've done to you. How can you love me? _

"Are you feeling better?"

"Bit." She set aside her pipe and slid out of her chair, laying beside him with her head in his lap. "Walking helped."

He tensed. The idea of her beginning to move around the city on her own, even with Faust to accompany her scared him a little. But she kept finding her way back home, and so far, nothing bad had happened. Besides, he should be happy that she was recovering enough of herself to go out and explore. He  _ is _ happy. He's just worried as well.

"Where'd you go?"

"Watched the ships."

That wasn't reassuring. The docks were a bustling nightmare of sailors coming and going, harlots offering their service, cheap booze right and left, and street kids ready to pilfer anything of value. He knew that very well.

"I  _ was _ careful." She looked annoyed with the words he hadn't even said. "One ship - from the south. Talked a bit to one of the sailors. Knew her language." She draped one arm over her eyes, blocking the sun. "Head started hurting then."

"Bad?" He tried to focus on the fact that she had made it back home rather than on the headaches that usually signaled a spell. Faust would have let him know if it had been bad. Certainly.

"For a bit sat on a -" She dropped her arm and he saw her lips twisted into a grimace as she searched for the right word in the right language. "Cotton bale. Rested."

"Is your head still hurting?"

She nodded, just a little. "Not so bad now."

"The smoke isn't good for that, you know."

She didn't respond other than to turn a bit on her side and settle closer against him. Asra ran his fingers over her shoulder and smoothed them over her hair, which was shining in the sun and falling out of the simple braid. Rubbed her shoulder, her arm. She was wearing a sleeveless top today and the upper portion that was usually covered was reddened from the sun.

"I want to read cards. Like you. Teach me?"

His hand stills. "I can, but why?" She hadn't ever had more than a passing interest in cartomancy before. Or any other kind of divination. It had only been something to know a bit about so that she could direct inquiries to Asra. Her magic was either practical enhancement of everyday objects, or something to serve a functional purpose, or sometimes charms and trinkets that were simply for beauty. But not fortunes. 

"Something to do. When you're gone. And -" Her hand curls around his knee. "I found a deck old. Don't know how to - they're somehow - I should answer - Calling me."

Asra continued to run his hand over her shoulder and arm, stalling for time while he figured out how to answer. He knows what deck she's talking about. It  _ is _ hers, just a simple, standard block print deck. Harmless enough, certainly. It's not as though she's asking to use his deck. That would probably be another mistake. Not because it was _his_ perse, but his cards were liminal things. He'd painted them in his gate, and carried them with him while he traveled different realms, and the cards brought some of that magic back with them.

If he could be honest, he's scared of what his cards would tell her.

But a standard deck that could be bought for a few coins in almost any city. Certainly, no harm could come from that.

"Sure, sweetheart." He ran the back of his hands over her cheek. "I can teach you."


	2. Chapter 2

Dema held her cloak at the neck, knuckles white from how tightly she clutched at the fabric and clung to Asra's arm with her other hand. Faust hid inside her hood, coiled around her shoulders. That should be reassuring. A bit, at least.

It wasn't cold out, not at all, not in early fall. But the market was loud and confusing in the morning. Asra shook his head. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. "Are you alright? Do you want to go back home?"

"Alright..." She stood up a little straighter, adding stubborn body language to her argument. "I'm alright." 

Asra patted her hand. "It'll be quieter when we get to the forest. I've just got to buy a few things for Muri."

"Who?"

He exhaled slowly. She'd met Muriel, several times now. She even liked him. But she couldn't remember from one moment to the next. No one could - except Asra, Faust, and Inanna. A horrible wish granted in a horrible way. "My friend. We'll visit him, then look for herbs." 

"Oh, okay." Her hands loosened and slid down his arm into her fingers intertwined with his. 

Asra stopped at the spice merchant first for salt and a bit of cinnamon and cocoa. Muriel had grown peppers in his garden this year, or he'd get some of those as well. Butter next. A small bottle of limoncello because Muri always smiled a bit when he brought some, even if he didn't admit to liking it. Then Selasi for bread, a plain crusty loaf and dense sweet pumpkin bread. The winter squashes were just beginning to come in, and it wasn't quite as good as it will be in a month or so when the squashes had time to ripen further, but Asra has been waiting for it.

"How are you, Dema?" Selasi greeted her gently as he wrapped up Asra's order.

She pushed her hood back a bit and smiled at Selasi. "Need more coffee."

"Asra's holding back on you?"

"Out." She paused and her eyes shifted to the right in thought. "We're out. Of coffee. Drank too much yesterday."

Yes, double the amount that she usually did. Asra thought she'd be up most of the night, but she had fallen asleep on his chest with her book still open. 

Selasi pushed the package across the counter with a smile. "I hear the seller two stalls down say that she just roasted a batch of beans from Zadith."

Dema's eyes brightened, and she tugged at Asra's hand. "Good stuff."

"And now I know where we're headed next. Thanks, Selasi."

Dema drank three little cups of strong dark coffee before she was satisfied, and insisted that Asra purchase some beans even if they weren't headed immediately back to the shop. "Evening - might be gone."

Presumably, the coffee was  _ that _ good. Asra couldn't tell the difference between one cup and another, even though he could list the traits of different varieties with ease. Dema remained just as enthusiastic about the stuff as ever. He'd buy her as much as she wanted. Of course, he would. Again that seemed normal.

  
  


"This is Muriel, Dema." It was awkward, introducing them again and again, but Muriel plays along each time as if he hadn't carried her back from the palace, soothing her incoherent sobs in some way that Asra hadn't been able to manage. She'd never seemed afraid when she met him, even when the spells they're both under start to clash and confusion and pain start to distress her, she's not afraid. This time she just looked up at Muriel and held out her hand. "Hi, Muriel."

Muriel closed his huge fingers around hers and shook it solemnly. "Good to see you, Dema." 

The next thing she said made more sense if she had known him for years. Which was true. Perhaps part of her knew it. "You need..." She paused, bit her lip, picked up a lock of her hair, let it go, and snapped her fingers beside her head. "A haircut."

Muriel ran a hand back through his hair and smiled faintly. "You might be right."

Asra folded his hands around her shoulders and rubbed them. "We weren't going to stay that long, sweetheart." 

Muriel has a pair of shears in the hut - good sharp ones that he uses to cut leather. He honed the edge on a bit of steel and offers them to Dema, before sitting down on the floor in front of her. She’s short enough that it put her at the right angle to comb her fingers through his hair, lifting individual locks to trim. Asra sat to the side on one of the benches Muriel had built and rubbed Inanna’s soft ears.

She circled around him carefully, finally kneeling in front of him to snip the locks that fell in front of his face. Satisfied with the work, she cupped Muriel’s jaw in his hands and lifted his head. “You. You’re hurt. Deep inside. Why?”

Muriel’s eyes dropped as his hands covered her, moving them off her face. “Many things. Things I can’t undo.”

Dema shook her head emphatically. “But it wasn’t you. You were someone’s tool." She spoke fluently, without the halts and stops Asra had gotten used to. "The real you was hidden away, deep inside. You're an artist with a knife, such beautiful things, but you never keep them. You give to Asra, to sell, to give the money to children in the city." She groaned and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. "You... Everything so loud... roaring fire... You helped? Me?"

Muriel’s lips pressed together into a thin line and rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t fret, little sister. Go hunt herbs with Asra, you’ll feel better soon.” He touched his lips gently to the top of her head and pushed himself up off the ground, disappearing silently through the door with Inanna behind him.

“Asra?” There were tears in her eyes when she looked back at him. “Why... So confused... How... I know...”

“Shh... It’s going to be okay.” He believed the words less and less each time he spoke them. Memories that come like a flash of lightning into her skull, knocking her back to the ground, and then going - sometimes on their own, and sometimes when she had been felled for too long - when he couldn’t get her back up on her feet otherwise - with a little nudge. “At some point, everything will make sense again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I love Muri.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes. That's my girl there.


End file.
